Magnolia

To Nashville, and back again
Former Vale resident making a living in Music City returns and entertains

Sean Hart
Argus Observer

ONTARIO - More than 1,500 miles separate Nashville and Boise — a long trip, even by air.

The 75-mile drive from the Boise airport to Alder Road, just west of Vale, adds at least another hour, but for one former resident and her best friend, who grew up in a small town, too, in Wisconsin, the trip to Eastern Oregon is worth the time.

Nicole Lea Yraguen and Tristan McKay, the founding and leading members of the Nashville-based country music group Magnolia, made the flight and drive from Tennessee to Oregon and played four shows in the Treasure Valley last week.

"It's fun to be able to come back and play for people who haven't seen me," Yraguen, who grew up in Vale, said. "I look a little different than I did in high school."
Yraguen graduated from Vale High School in 1995, attended Treasure Valley Community College, then packed her bags and headed for Nashville, Music City. The music industry program at Middle Tennessee State University, close to Nashville in Murfeesboro, was a good one, Yraguen said, and she was intent on getting something from it.

"I learned about the music industry as much as I could," Yraguen said and added she received a bachelor's degree in recording industry in 2000. She got a job working as a catalogue manager for Cal IV Entertainment, an independent music publishing company in Nashville.

Yraguen worked at Cal IV for three years, and while there she met her soon-to-be best friend and bandmate, an intern, Tristan McKay, another small-town girl with big dreams.

McKay was born and raised in Wilmot, Wis., "a very small town, just like Vale," McKay said. "We both grew up in small towns."

Performing in musicals in high school gave McKay some vocal experience, and after graduation, she left for Murray State University in Kentucky. She put in some time at the school then transferred within the state to the University of Louisville but didn't stay there long either.

"A friend of mine in Louisville was a fiddle player," McKay said. The two auditioned during the summer for parts in a musical production at Dollywood in Pigeon Forge, Tenn. McKay got the part and worked there, singing six days a week, she said, but decided to move on after one summer.

McKay then transferred to Middle Tennessee State University and attended the school for a year and a half.

"I hated MTSU," she said. "I thought, 'School's not for me.'"

That feeling didn't last forever — McKay later attended Belmont University and received a bachelor of science degree in liberal studies in 2002 — but leaving school led McKay to work as an intern at Cal IV and to her eventual music partner. McKay made it known she was looking to start a band, and word circulated through the company, eventually falling on the eager ears of Yraguen.

"I've played in bands all my life, and (McKay) said she was looking for a bass player ... so I just learned to play bass," Yraguen said. "She didn't know I couldn't play bass."

"(Yraguen) approached me and said, 'If you need a bass player, I'll fill in,'" in 2000, McKay said. "We became best friends right away."

Initially, McKay wanted to play previously written country songs, or covers, Yraguen said but added that just doesn't work in Nashville. So the group decided to pursue a different genre, '80s music, which didn't work out very well either.

"Nobody was doing it," Yraguen said, "but then everybody started doing it."

The group branched out, learning a variety of cover songs, with Yraguen on bass and McKay providing the vocals. Through the years, different musicians played other instruments in the band, but McKay and Yraguen were the core members.

"We never planned on being a duet," McKay said. "The fans kind of gave us the idea."

"I originally was just going to be a bass player," Yraguen said but added people requested songs McKay didn't know. "Anything anybody would request, if I knew it, I'd play it."

Their fans enjoyed both girls trading off on lead vocals, so they began approaching their music from that perspective. Eventually, the fans started asking to hear songs written by the band, or originals.

"When people started requesting stuff I had written," Yraguen said, "it was a whole different ball game."

McKay, Yraguen and their band, known as Magnolia, continued to write their own songs and released their first album, "Fall Down Seven," in March 2007.

Yraguen and McKay said only 1 percent of all albums made sell more than 1,000 copies. They've already sold more than 2,000 copies of Fall Down Seven and are recording a new album to be released at the end of the year.

They weren't sure what the title would be at this point, but they are working on the songs and already perform some of the new ones live.

"We enjoy playing songs live before they get to the album. It's good to see people's reaction," Yraguen said. "I think it's the best way to figure out what your album is going to be like."

One of their new tunes, tentatively titled "On the Line (Not Even Born Yet)," is a poignant ode to the men and women of the armed forces.

McKay and Yraguen performed the song at a show Tuesday evening at Mackey's Steakhouse and Pub in Ontario in front of about 50 people. Prior to playing it, the girls gave a toast to the troops — something they said they do at every show — and everyone in the audience tipped their glasses back. Perhaps that loosened the spectators up a bit, but they seemed to enjoy the song more than a swill of a stout would induce.

It wasn't long before the duo had the audience back in on the action for a "holler and swaller." If you heard an inharmonious chorus of random screams, squeals, grunts and yells coming from the patio at Mackey's, it was the audience, not the band.

Both girls had amazing voices. The vocals were powerful, strong throughout the show, with excellent harmonies provided by either as the two switched it up on the lead part for different songs.

McKay and Yraguen played the next two nights at Mackey's also, each night drawing a larger crowd.

"It's fun to come home to get to see people, not to sound weird, real people that like country music," Yraguen said.

Even without growing up here, McKay said she enjoyed the trip.

"People here are much more encouraging. I think in Nashville music is taken for granted," being played everywhere, bars, bookstores, even at the airport, she said. "But I have family here too — the Yraguens. They're my second family." - Argus Observer, Ontario OR

"When you hear Magnolia play, their lyrics paint a picture, their voices bring you in and their music brings both to life." - by Beckey Arnold, Argus Observer, Ontario, OR

"Check out this in-demand female duo...they roll through their original music as well as covers ranging from Pat Benatar and Sheryl Crow to Lynyrd Skynyrd." - Nashville Rage